


Little Red Thread

by marelicarter (padmefuckingamidala), padmefuckingamidala



Series: The Little Red Thread Series [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky's in an abusive relationship, F/M, I'm thriving, Multi, Peter is the sweetest, Uncle Bucky Barnes, but it is real and will shine later on, but it's not too graphic, happy avenger family, reader is wonderful and has an amazing dog, service dog, still valid!!! please be careful!!, the MJ/Peter thing is hinted at, there isn't as much angst as usual so you're welcome, there will be so many parts to this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-05 03:50:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21206921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padmefuckingamidala/pseuds/marelicarter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/padmefuckingamidala/pseuds/padmefuckingamidala
Summary: When you hold your soulmate's hand for the first time, a little red thread will appear. Only you and your soulmate see it. Bucky's relieved when he meets his soulmate, and finally gets to grow and get the love he deserves.





	1. Chapter 1

Maybe Bucky is one of those people without a soulmate. He accepts it and finds himself snuggled up at night with a woman named Violet, who swoons over his Avenger’s status and uses him for a good photo op. It’s bittersweet, funny enough; no one else likes her and puts distance between their friendship as long as she’s around, but then again, sometimes Violet is all he has. Everyone else is off with their soulmates or living their lives, and here Bucky is, falling apart because he’s dug himself into a hole of loneliness. 

Violet likes things, but she expects them, too. Flowers are a must, and if the bouquet isn’t big enough, she freaks. At any given moment, Bucky must be cute for a instagram photo, because she wants to plaster it everywhere. Even when Bucky says he doesn’t like that, all she does is smack him and cry and beg until finally, he just gives up and gives a fake smile.

He’s so tired. Exhausted, even, between work and going home to someone manipulative and borderline abusive. Bucky can take it though–he’s been through Hydra and the fall, and so much worse with his job, and he figures he should be able to handle more. Maybe someday she’ll soften up and be cute, but until then, nothing.

He wonders if maybe Violet is his soulmate. When you hold your soulmate’s hand for the first time, a red line appears that only you can see. Tied around your pinkies and connected to each other, just a special bond for the both of you. The connection is instant, but it’s a pain in the neck. Hands have to be held. He’s held Violet’s plenty of times but wonders if he’s doing it wrong. Maybe, he thinks, if he tries again, Violet will have a line connected to his pinky.

Like always, he enjoys his walks alone to the cafe where he can sit and breathe, but for some reason, Violet insists on tagging along. All she does is nag and whine, her phone up and her arms out, occasional pauses for pictures and cutesy coupley stuff, but Bucky isn’t in the mood. He’s so anxious and winded that all he wants to do is hide in an alley and have the panic attack he can feel building up. Violet hates that he has panic attacks. She loathes them and tells him all the time that he’s a man, an Avenger for god’s sake, and he shouldn’t be such a baby. He shouldn’t be sad or have PTSD, because he’s better than that. She’ll shake his shoulders and yell until she’s red in the face and ready to snap.

“Can you just listen to me?” Violet snaps.

“I am listening, Vi,” he sighs, stuffing his hand in his pocket to hide the way it trembles. “Please just calm down.”

She scoffs. “No. You’re being a dick, and you’re shaking again. I don’t understand why you can’t just listen to me. What’s so hard about it? Peggy just posted a picture of her ring. Steve loves her more than you love me.”

“It’s an engagement ring,” he points out.

“So?”

“So? They’ve been dating for a while and they’re soulmates, so it makes sense.”

“I don’t care how long we’ve been dating,” Violet says with narrowed eyes. “We’re soulmates! You could propose to me at anytime.”

Bucky holds up his hands as if to show them off, clearly not able to hide the way he shakes “Vi, we’re not soulmates. We’re gonna need a little more time before–”

And she socks him straight in the face. His nose bleeds from the pressure but nothing else really hurts, because he’s a super soldier and she’s just some girl that does yoga for instagram. Bucky’s ears ring as the bubble of anxiety expands further, making him shake harder, nearly dizzy with a heavy chest. Violet yells about a ring and how she deserves to be his wife, but that doesn’t matter because suddenly, a new voice breaks through.

A woman with a dog comes up, yelling before Bucky could even see her face. Her hair looks soft and her outfit is nice, indicating some sort of importance, right? Jeans, an open blazer, and a pair of heels–she has to be important. She’s walking a dog. Okay, maybe it was a royal dog? His head spins from the icky feeling in his head and the confussion of the dog’s status–woman’s status, fuck, he’s out of it–but none of it seems to matter.

“Walk away,” the woman tells Violet, stepping completely between her and Bucky.

“Who do you think you are?” Violet sneers. “This is my boyfriend, you’re just being a jealous dick!”

It becomes obvious that the woman isn’t moving any time soon. Her dog paws at Bucky’s leg and whines quietly, but Bucky’s too busy trying to steady his own mind and watch the pretty woman before him. His chest feels heavy, weighted and boiling under his skin and pounding in his ribs, but what can he do? He’s in public. He can’t just sit against a building and hyperventilate for twenty minutes without attention.

When it comes to times like this, Bucky wishes he never met Violet. He was so fucking tired of the panic attacks, hidden away in his own home as if he was doing something wrong, as if it wasn’t okay, going against everything his therapist had instilled in him. She was a really good therapist, too, a high-end one paid for by Stark.

Maybe he should call Tony. There really wasn’t any bad blood between them anymore. Sure, it was a bit awkward, but they talked about it. They all did. It wasn’t really a problem anymore, was there? Or maybe he shouldn’t call Tony. Tony wouldn’t want anything to do with him and the whole Violet situation wouldn’t make it any better…

When he’s shaken from his thoughts, Violet is gone. Bucky’s chest hurts at the thought of his “soulmate” just leaving him there, but it’s not like she actually helps or cares about how horrible he feels. The woman just gently squeezes his biceps and makes him look at her. “Hey,” she murmurs, “wanna go sit in a coffee shop?”

“I-I-I–”

“It’s okay,” she basically coos, and the dog beside them whines as if in agreement. “You’re panicking. Let’s get you off the sidewalk, okay?”

“Okay,” he echoes, barely audible, and she guides him the best she can. She’s just a normal woman and he’s some ex-assassin with thick legs and an unforgiving bitch-face, so he understands how hard she tries. The thought of sitting in a coffee shop doesn’t help his nerves, which she realizes, and unfortunately they end up in an alley between two buildings, several feet from an overflowing dumpster.

Bucky plops down with his back against the brick and his knees drawn up towards his chest. The dog, which the woman calls Mellie, shifts to sit between his shaking legs and nuzzle her snout into the crease of his neck, her head shifting to rest on his shoulder. The weight is nice. Nice. Bucky takes a breath. Nice. He whimpers. Mellie does, too.

“Can you match my breathing?” she whispers, crouching down, careful to not get her pants dirty. “In for four counts, hold for eight, out for seven?”

“Too many numbers,” he gasps. His hands ball into fists and his shoulders shake, which only makes him loathe himself more, because he doesn’t want to cause a problem for Mellie. The dog’s too sweet to be crushed–fuck he’s too anxious to deal with it right now. He’ll have a problem with Violet later. He’ll be a mess. Maybe he should just take up Tony’s offer and move back into the tower. No more Violet–that was a rule, a condition, to move in. Tony may not be as close with him, but he did make amends with Steve and him. They’re buddies. Steve moved out to be with Peggy. Tony adopted a kid. Him and Pepper are together. Pepper is nice. Nice. Tony’s adopted kid is also a hero. Spider. Something.

“Don’t do that,” the woman says, and grabs his metal hand away from his hair where he was pulling. She tangles her fingers through his and a weird feeling knots his stomach. The woman stays quiet, but when Bucky looks up, she’s crying. But she’s happy. She says nothing. 

He worries he hurt her, but when he follows her gaze to her hand in his, his heart nearly stops. Around his pinky is a little red thread, tied neatly in a bow, and the other end was wrapped around hers. The line, the dreaded fucking line–but it’s not dreaded because it’s not Violet. It’s a stranger that sat with him in the middle of a fucking alley while he had a panic attack. 

“Just breathe,” she says again, voice cracking with tears. “It’s okay. It’s okay, just breathe, please.”

“You’re–”

“We’ll talk about it when you’re not panicking.”

“But I want to talk about it now,” he gasps. His heart is happy despite the anxiety making it tight and finicky. The red thread is around his metal pinky, and somehow that means so much more. “I don’t know your name, I don’t–I-I-I–”

She presses her lips to his forehead and pulls back, keeping their fingers intertwined. “I’m Y/N. Just breathe, I’ll still be here, sweetheart.”

For once, Bucky doesn’t feel horrible for struggling with his emotions. Y/N looks down at him with such admiration and safety that his heart doesn’t clench in his chest, and for once, he feels like maybe he’s okay. Mellie makes a weird whine sound in content, nuzzling deeper against his shoulder. Maybe he’s okay–maybe everything was leading to this, and in the end, his life is going to look up from here.


	2. Chapter 2

Moving out of Violet’s apartment is the best feeling of his life. Bucky packs up everything once he gets home safely—Y/N had stayed with him until his Uber came—and for the first time in months he feels like he can breathe. She couldn’t come with him, unfortunately, because she was on her way to work with Mellie, who didn’t seem to want to leave Bucky. They traded numbers and stared at his little red threat the whole way home.

“I never thought I’d get to meet my soulmate,” she murmured reluctant to let go of his hand. “I want you. I want everything with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky replied. “The arm doesn’t bother you?”

She shook her head, laughing though her eyes were teary. “No. God, no. I just want you.”

“Okay,” he repeated, but his smile is too wide across his face.

He considers telling his friends, maybe, he thinks as he packs. Bucky doesn’t own much. All of his clothes and shoes and toiletries fit into the suitcase, and any odds and ends fit into his backpack. That’s it. He’s not used to having material things or being tied down anywhere. He hates that this experience was horrible. He should’ve gotten his own place or took Tony up on his offer sooner, but the past was in stone and his future is somehow so much brighter, all because of one little thread.

He leaves Violet a note, blocks her number, and catches a taxi to Stark’s tower, where security gives him a rough time. Peter happens to get back from school and clears him, talking happily the whole time about a therapy dog named Marshmallow, who is the cutest thing ever.

“Maybe I can convince Tony to let us get a dog,” Peter says as they ride the elevator up. “What do you think, Sergeant Barnes? Will you help me take care of it?”

“Of course,” he answers with teary eyes.

“Uh, sir? Are you okay?”

Bucky nods and grins through all the tears. “I’m just… for the first time in a year, Peter, I’m really happy.”

Peter wants to cry at his answer but opts to hug him tight instead, something Tony was thrilled that FRIDAY documented for him.

Tony puts him up in a nice suite. Boring, not too decorated, but it’s very tasteful and clean, and it’s his own. “Order whatever you want from Ikea,” Tony says, “FRIDAY can help. Or Pete, but only after his homework. Got it?”

Bucky appreciates the stay. He spars with the others, who welcome him with open arms, and falls into a nice routine. It’s pleasant and normal until he wants to reach out to Y/N, who doesn’t answer. After a week of simple texts and a clashing of schedules, Bucky gets antsy. He tells her he wants to see her again. That he’ll take it at her pace. That he doesn’t care how it happens, but he’s just happy to be a part of his life. And he doesn’t get an answer, his world crumbles.

He was supposed to be happy. Y/N was finally that sliver of happiness, but she doesn’t reach out anymore, and the team sees his heartbreak. “It’s okay,” Peter tells him. “That just means I can kidnap you and make you do a bunch of uncle-y duties.”

“I’d do that regardless,” Bucky tries to tease.

Peter just grins at him and fights the pity he feels. “Uh, Sergeant Barnes? I wanted to ask if you’d come with me and my friends to get some ice cream after school?”

Bucky appreciates Peter. He knows that Pete’s a good kid and means well, and maybe he genuinely would feel better if Bucky was there. So he agrees. He takes his car, a generous gift of Tony’s, and stands out front of the school waiting for him, leaning against the sleek vehicle with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

Final bell rings, but Pete and his friends don’t appear until it’s nearly all cleared out. Floods of children dissipate and leave an empty path for Peter, MJ, and Ned, who are joined by another woman. She wears high heels, a blazer that looks nice with her jeans, and a dog on a leash walks by her side. The first thing Bucky notices is the red thread tied around the woman’s pinky. It’s Y/N, with Mellie, who prances happily with her tongue out at all the attention she’s receiving.

“I’m glad Marshmallow isn’t hurt,” Ned says as they walk out the door. “Thanks for letting us sit with her while you gathered your things!”

“I didn’t make anyone late, did I?” she asks with her face softening. “I don’t drive, so if you guys needed rides, I can’t offer them.”

MJ shakes her head, but her normal tough-girl demeanor is shattered in favor of the fluffy dog. Her fingers idly scratch at Marshmallow–Mellie?–’s head, awkwardly, since she is the tallest out of the friend group. At the bottom of the stairs, MJ straightens out and tries to hide her disappointment for not being able to casually pet the very happy dog. “Nah,” she answers, “Peter’s uncle or whatever is taking us for ice cream, so he’ll be here.”

Marshmallow barks.

Y/N pulls on her leash. “Hey, Mellie, shh!”

“Mellie?” the kids chorus.

“Oh my god!”

“That is so cute!”

Peter’s lower lip juts out. “Mellie, Mellie! Ned was right, you are a star.”

Mellie pulls against Y/N’s grip, wagging her tail frantically as she does so. Y/N can’t exactly calm her in time. Since she is a bigger dog, getting loose is nearly effortless. Mellie takes off with another happy prance, towards Bucky as fast as she can; Bucky doesn’t pet her fast enough, which leads her to stand on her hind legs to paw at his chest.

“Mellie!” Y/N shouts after her. “Leave that man alone! Sir, I’m so sorry.”

Pete just waves it off. “It’s okay, Miss Y/L/N, that’s my uncle. Kind of. Not really my uncle, but that’s him nonetheless. He likes dogs.”

Bucky feels weird. He should say something to reassure her that he isn’t stalking her, but at the same time, it was just a coincidence that he shouldn’t have to worry about. He happily pets Mellie as his mind works itself up. Would she even want to be near him? Would she tell him, in person, that she doesn’t want him as a soulmate? They were fine the last time they met up, and the texting (before the dry spell) had been going great.

“Hi, Sergeant Barnes!” Ned says with a wave. “Oh, Miss Y/L/N, you could totally come get ice cream with us. Mellie deserves some for being awesome for an hour, right?”

She just laughs–that is, until she sees who Mellie ran to. Bucky lifts his head in time to catch her face, twisted with shock and hurt, staring back at him. Oh. She says it, too. “Oh,” she says, as if she’s been punched in the gut. “I-I-I–”

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Bucky reassures softly, “not if you don’t want to. It’s okay, Y/N.”

But she does. Without another word, she closes the gap between them and hugs him so tight he things she could cut him in half. 

Ned clears his throat from behind them. “Does this mean you guys will come get ice cream with us?”

MJ elbows him but Y/N only nods with a sad smile. Y/N explains that she is Bucky’s soulmate, because of the little red thread, to which MJ and Peter try to hide their sly glance to their pinkies and then each other.

It isn’t until later, in the bathroom connected to Bucky’s room, that Y/N explains the radio silence. She wipes off her makeup and shyly looks back to him, the purple ring around her eye unmistakable. If Mellie saw her tears, she would paw at her feet and whine, but luckily, Mellie was keeping the trio company in the communal lounge. Bucky, however, was trying her tears in an instant.

“I don’t care what you look like,” Bucky says. “This isn’t going to push me away.”

“It’s not the bruise itself,” she mumbles. “I ran into Violet.”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

“She wasn’t too happy that I was with you instead of her,” she says quietly. “She deleted your number and blocked it, so even if you did text me, I didn’t get it, and I didn’t know which one it was to unblock it.” Carefully, as if testing her limits, she hooks her fingers through Bucky’s and holds his metal hand captive as his flesh one rests against her cheek. “I don’t even know how she found me, Bucky. I was walking home the other day and she just fucking decked me.”

To ease his mind, Bucky walks with her to and from the school, or sometimes he picks her up and drives her. Violet is ignored no matter how hard she begs; Bucky doesn’t know her. Not anymore. No look is spared, either, and she is treated like any other garbage can passed along a street.

Steve finds out about Bucky’s soulmate through Peggy, who finds out after visiting Tony and seeing Bucky curled up on the couch with his head in Y/N’s lap, watching some terrible black and white movie for background noise as the two talk. She stares, no matter how impolite it may be, before Y/N notices and smiles at her. “Hi,” she says. “Are you a friend of Bucky’s? You can borrow him for a moment if you need.”

“No,” Bucky moans, “you’re playing with my hair. Who is it?”

“A woman.”

“I don’t know any other woman besides Peggy and Pepper.”

Y/N rolls her eyes. “Well, this nice lady doesn’t look like Pepper. Killer red lipstick, though. I don’t see Pepper wear red.”

Bucky glances up at a very shocked Peggy. “Okay, yes, I know this one. Hi, Peg. Please tell me there’s nothing important to talk about? Y/N just started braiding my hair, and I don’t want to get up right now.”

Peggy swallows the excitement she feels bubbling in her chest and throat. “Oh my G–no, James, I don’t need to talk to you. Actually. I’m, um, here for Tony. But…. I just…”

“This is Y/N,” Bucky tells her with a soft smile. “She’s my soulmate.”

“Oh? When did you two meet?”

It’s Y/N’s turn to speak. “Three months ago.”

Now, Peggy seems appalled. “James! Three bloody months?”

Bucky shrugs. “I didn’t want to bother you guys.”

“I–” Peggy refrains from snapping, no matter how much she wants to. A soulmate. Bucky’s very own soulmate, to be exact. She takes a deep breath and heads for the elevator. “I’ll talk to you on my way out, James. It was lovely to meet you, Y/N. Please, if you’ll excuse me.”

She texts Steve, who tells Sam, who tells Sharon, who goes to Natasha and demands why they weren’t updated, but Natasha just shrugs and says, “I thought he would tell you guys. He hasn’t shut up about her since she helped him get over a panic attack in an alley.”

Bucky thinks of Violet and her tantrum for a ring. Three more months have passed, but when Bucky tries to hint around the subject of a ring, Y/N doesn’t yell. She doesn’t scream or stomp or push Bucky back. She just carries on with the conversation and doesn’t force any ideas on to him. As of now, she’s just perfectly happy being Aunt Y/N. She’s happy being Bucky’s girlfriend, his soulmate, and watching Tony and Pepper’s infant daughter Morgan while they’re both in meetings. She’s perfectly content taking Peter, his friends, and Mellie out for ice cream after a stressful day; and most importantly, she’s perfectly happy with him. They’re normal people, tied together with a red thread on the pinkies, in love and happy.

And for the first time in years, Bucky is desperate to buy a ring and show her off on social media, just like Steve does and has done for Peggy. He buys a ring, gets afraid it’s too flashy or not her style, and takes it back. He looks for days, then day turn into weeks. The search is far from over, until one day he rests his head in her lap and watches her scroll through her phone.

“Whatcha doing?” he mumbles.

She shrugs, letting her hand fall to his hair and idly twist at the strands. “Just looking at Pinterest. I thought Peter told you about it that one day? He saved a lot of Star Wars ideas.”

“What do you save?”

She smiles softly. “Pretty things,” she says casually, and they fall back into a silent moment.

Bucky watches her look at pictures of very pretty rings. Some of them she scrolls past, but others, she saves to a board. She saves one that looks just like the one he picked out but returned out of fear. His heart beats rapidly in his chest despite the calming notion of his soulmate playing in his hair.

First thing in the morning, Bucky slips out of bed and rushes back to the jewelry store, where he waits desperately for the doors to open. The woman behind the counter smiles at him and pulls a small box from the safe. “I had a feeling you’d be back,” she says, “so I hid the ring for you just in case. You must really love this woman if you’re stressing out about the perfect ring.”

Bucky wants to cry, he’s so thankful. “Yes,” he sighs, “and I think that scares me a little bit. I know the ring isn’t life or death, but I want something that shows her I care. I finally have a relationship I want to show off and I want her to know how much I care.”

“Nothing will be as perfect as her,” the woman says as she begins to ring him out for the ring, “but you gotta learn to trust your gut.”

Bucky takes the ring after buying it for a second time and makes his way back home. He takes the elevator up to his room and grins at the sight of you holding Morgan’s hand as she tries to walk a little more independently down the hall to where Mellie sits and waits. Tony, still in his pajamas, records the little moment on his phone as he stands behind the dog that Morgan desperately wishes to befriend. She yells in her gibberish baby language as she wobbles down the hall. It’s the kind of moment that makes Bucky’s heart skip a beat. Having a girlfriend that gets along with his family was one of his favorite things in the world.

“Buh, buh, buh!” Morgan cheers.

“Yeah,” Y/N cooes, “that’s Uncle Bucky! Good job, Morg.” She looks to him as she smiles; she’s just so full of love for everyone in the tower, even Peter and his friends, and it’s not faked simply for the sake of using Bucky’s status. Y/N is happy here, and that’s what makes him feel so in love.

“Muh, muh!” she squeals, pressing her face into Mellie’s fur.

Bucky laughs along with her and Tony as they watch the tiny infant oogle over the excited dog. His heart is full of love, and though he wants to give her the ring right now, he decides he can wait. There’s no pressure to prove his love when together, at any moment, their love is so visible.

He’ll create another loving moment later. For now, they already have a loving moment being made.


End file.
